How to make magic use friendlier?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Huh, that seems slightly broken for the really high level spells. A perk is eventually a wasted point if you do end up getting all the prereqs later (do you get it back then?) but for 1 point getting top-tier spells when it might cost dozens of points for someone with low IQ/Magery to get the prereqs high enough...

I don't think that the Perks in GURPS 4th Edition that are equivalent to 3E's "Knacks" are all that dangerously powerful.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

I was checking out the description at http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/dungeonmagic/ which links to http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/magicalstyles/ as the parent book, and noticed it mentions Pyramid 4/48/64/66

Does anyone know if everything in Pyramid is automatically canon?

If you mean "can be treated as RAW," then, yes. Of course, the GM is always welcome to ignore any book, article, or other source they don't have.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

I was checking out the description at http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/dungeonmagic/ which links to http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/magicalstyles/ as the parent book, and noticed it mentions Pyramid 4/48/64/66

Does anyone know if everything in Pyramid is automatically canon?
.

GURPS doesn't have a canon. Products that aren't specifically DF are liable to include spells that DF doesn't have.

[Refplace]

Cannon is the wrong word but Pyramid is just as official as any published GURPS book. This has been stated by SJG staff multiple times.
However as people say your free to use or not use any rule or idea you want to.
That also has been stated by staff multiple times.
GURPS is designed with a modular approach, pick the ones you like and discard the rest.
Pyramid articles are just smaller modules.

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

1 point to skip all prereqs isn't that bad for a tier 2 spell but in terms of top level spells it seems pretty cheap.

Not really. Spell prerequisites are a flavor choice, not a game balance one. Spells' balance comes from their time to cast, cost, duration, resistance, and the like (balance is far from perfect, but the prerequisite chains aren't really there for balance).

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by simply Nathan

Not really. Spell prerequisites are a flavor choice, not a game balance one. Spells' balance comes from their time to cast, cost, duration, resistance, and the like (balance is far from perfect, but the prerequisite chains aren't really there for balance).

Or at least, that is most of the authors' opinion these days. A decade or two ago it was not so clear.

Because GURPS has such a long history, there are things which made sense when they were written for a specific context, but are troublesome today now that they have been generalized and other tools are available to solve the original problem. For example, in early 3e the default way to create a power was to define a spell (so ghosts had a bunch of special ghost spells for materializing and scaring people and throwing things around the room). That was simpler than messing about with Advantages, Enhancements, and Limitations but also arbitrary.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

1 point to skip all prereqs isn't that bad for a tier 2 spell but in terms of top level spells it seems pretty cheap.

I'm pretty sure that the 4e Perk that allows you to skip prerequisites has to be bought once for every prerequisite skipped, not once per top tier spell.

3e Knacks were basically spells-as-powers with a poorly-balanced pricing scheme. Ignore them.

[mlangsdorf]

No, the Charm/Shortcut to Power perk lets you skip all prerequisites for one spell.

Spell prerequisites are extremely arbitrary: there's no real reason why Flame Armor has 8 prerequisites but Lightning Armor has 12. Glue, Grease, and Great Haste are all candidates for "top tier" fight ending spells, but each has only a single prerequisite (Haste). Ice Slick is arguably a weaker version of Grease but has a higher prerequisite count.

The trade-off on the Shortcut to Power perk is that you're spending a point on a perk that could have been spent on a spell, and that spell is valuable in its own right.